Sunday, July 14, 2013

THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION - WHY OSWALD IS NOT GUILTY w/notes

THE DOORS OF
PERCEPTION - WHY OSWALD IS NOT GUILTY

of being the Sixth
Floor Sniper and Assassin of President Kennedy

By William Kelly [billkelly3@gmail.com (609) 425-6297

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy remains an
unsolved cold case homicide because it has never been properly investigated as
a criminal case, the main suspect and accused assassin was murdered while in
police custody before he could be tried in a court of law, and no one has been
convicted of the crime today.

The FBI said that they will maintain it as an open case forever,
while many hundreds of independent citizens continue to investigate the case
and try to answer some of the outstanding questions that can still be resolved,
and researchers pour of recently released government records and continue to
seek the many documents still being withheld for reasons of national security.

The assassination of President Kennedy is not yet a matter
of history, but remains a cold case unresolved homicide that can and should be
solved to a legal and moral certainty, as it can be if the remaining records
are released and the still living witness are properly deposed before they die.

Still there are those who claim that the case has been
solved all along - by the Dallas Police, within a few hours of the
assassination, and the one and only guilty person - Lee Harvey Oswald did it
for his own perverted, psychological reasons that we will never know.

While only an extremist - less than 20% of the people
believe Oswald is guilty of killing JFK alone, [1] they include the most powerful
people in government, law enforcement, academia and the media, including former
Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) Chairman Judge John Tunheim and
former prosecutor Gary Cornwell, a deputy counsel to the House Select Committee
on Assassinations (HSCA).

Excuse me, Judge John Tunheim and Gary Cornwell and those
who have publicly pronounced Lee Harvey Oswald guilty of killing President
Kennedy, but I’d like you to consider a few facts that prove to me that Oswald
is not guilty of murdering the president.

Can you give Lee Harvey Oswald a break? Can you give the
accused assassin of President Kennedy the benefit of the doubt? Can you assume
that he’s innocent, if only for a few minutes while I try to convince you he
didn’t kill President Kennedy?

Do you support the time honored American tradition of presumption of innocence
- a constitutional right that presupposes one’s innocence until proven guilty
in a court of law? Well Oswald was never convicted in a court of law - other
than for disturbing the peace for rumbling around on a New
Orleans street corner with some anti-Castro Cubans,
and now he can’t defend himself because he was murdered while in custody of the
Dallas Police, which greatly reflects on the law enforcement officers who first
considered him a suspect. [2]

If you can at least try to keep an
open mind, and consider a few basic previously established facts - four facts
that if true, prove Oswald is innocent of killing the President, then maybe you
can view the assassination in a new light and from a different perspective, and
join the effort to try to identify the real assassins.

For a variety of reasons, most
people believe Oswald is not guilty of being the assassin and was framed as a
patsy, as he himself claimed, and they consider him a pawn in a larger
conspiracy, one that still affects us today. The unresolved nature of the
assassination of President Kennedy still affects us today in the continued
unhindered use of political assassination as a means of controlling power and
the continued withholding of government records relating to the assassination
on grounds of national security.

But a few people still believe that
Oswald was the lone, deranged gunman, and maintain he is guilty of the crime.
Those who think Oswald did it alone also usually attribute to him a psychological
motive - such as seeking fame. As Judge Tunheim put it: “I think his motivation
is he thought he was supposed to be someone famous in his own mind, and if
he did this he would be viewed with great glory in the Soviet Union and Cuba,”
an informed opinion that belies the fact that Oswald denied the deed.

Since it can be clearly shown, as I
will do, that Oswald could not have been the Sixth Floor Sniper, then what can be
made of the motivation of the patsy, framed for the crime, just as he claimed
to be?

Whatever you believe, your opinion
is based on something - probably some true facts that you learned over the
years - or maybe it is based on an accumulation of a lot of knowledge about the
case, but the positive proof Oswald is not guilty of killing JFK is based only
on a few simple officially acknowledged facts that were established in the
first few minutes after the assassination.

Those predisposed to Oswald’s singular
guilt usually list the hard, circumstantial evidence that proves to them, that
Oswald shot the president from the Sixth Floor Sniper’s nest. As they attest,
the rifle found on the Sixth Floor was ordered by Oswald, his palm print was on
the rifle, three bullet shells found at the scene were ejected from Oswald’s
rifle and the bullet found at Parkland hospital was fired from the rifle. What
more do you need to convict him? [3]

Although Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry
was one of the first to proclaim Oswald guilty, - after he was told by Washington
officials that “You have you’re man,” Curry also acknowledged that, after all
is said and done, “we can’t put him in that window.” And for good reason. [4]

The preponderance of testimony and
evidence supports the fact Oswald wasn’t the Sixth Floor Sniper, as those who
did eyeball the man in the window exonerate Oswald as they unanimously agree
the gunman wore a white shirt, while Oswald was wearing a brown one, and as one
witness noticed, the sniper had a distinguishing bald spot on the top of his
head, a detail that excludes Oswald as a sniper suspect. [5]

There are also witnesses who saw a
man with a rifle in the Sixth Floor widow at 12:15
p.m., [6] when Oswald was seen on the first floor. [7] And after the
assassination a court clerk from across the street saw a man in the Sixth Floor
window five minutes after the last shot was fired, [8] when Oswald was on the
second floor. If Oswald was the Sixth Floor Sniper, then who was the man seen
in the window with a rifle fifteen minutes before the assassination, when
Oswald was on the first floor? And if not Oswald, who was the man in the
sniper’s window five minutes after the last shot, when Oswald could not have
been there?

These questions don’t seem to bother those who are set in their
belief that Oswald shot the President from that window and then quickly ran
down the steps to the Second Floor Lunchroom, and it seems like that regardless
of whatever exculpatory evidence is presented, Oswald is the designated patsy.

TECHNICALLY
NOT GUILTY

The bottom line is - Oswald was not convicted in a court of
law and probably wouldn’t have been if subjected to a trial for a number of
reasons, as enumerated by former Manhattan
prosecutor Robert K. Tanenbaum, the first deputy chief counsel to the HSCA. [9.]

When he was Chairman of the ARRB, Judge Tunheim didn’t take
a public position as to whether there was a conspiracy, or pass judgment on
Oswald, as his job was not to investigate the assassination, but to locate and
release sealed government records to the public and to let people make up their
own minds. But Judge Tunheim has more recently been quoted in the media that he
personally believes Oswald guilty. [10]

Judge Tunheim must have read a lot about Lee Harvey Oswald,
and he certainly knows much more about the accused assassin than most people, but
he’s also a federal Judge and should know better than to describe Oswald as “guilty,”
a legal term that applies only to those who have been convicted in a court of
law.

When discussing Oswald, open minded and honest people,
especially those familiar with legal terminology, refer to Oswald as the “accused
assassin” or “alleged assassin,” as the TSBD historic marker correctly calls
him, because that’s what he is.

And the gunman in the window should be referred to as the
Sixth Floor Sniper, because it has never been established for certain that it
was Oswald, and there is a preponderance of evidence that Oswald wasn’t on the
Sixth Floor at the time the shots were fired, as I will demonstrate.

OSWALD - PAWN & “MERE PATSY?”

Judge Tunheim isn’t the only well-informed person to
publicly express a personal belief in Oswald’s guilt, as Gary Cornwell, the former
Deputy Chief Counsel to the HSCA does in his book. After the resignation of the
first HSCA Chief Counsel Richard Sprague, Cornwell was recruited by second
chief counsel G. Robert Blakey.

In his book “Real
Answers” Cornwell wrote: “…we confirmed that much of what the Warren
Commission said was wrong. But we also
found that most of the many reasons that led critics of the Warren
Commission to conclude that Oswald was a
mere patsy were also wrong, and were based upon inadequate access to the
available evidence, questionable assumptions and logic, and/or faulty
‘scientific’ analysis…” [11]

“Mere patsy”!?

Certainly if Oswald was framed for the crime, and was set up
as the patsy, as he claimed, and as much of the evidence indicates, then the
assassination wasn’t the work of a deranged lone nut, but was a well planned
and successfully executed conspiracy by unknown confederates still at large, and
the case is an unsolved homicide and a major national security threat today.

There’s nothing “mere” about it.

If Oswald wasn’t the Sixth Floor Sniper and was a patsy, then
he most certainly played a smaller role - that of a sacrificial pawn - in a
much larger game and a scheme of things that has yet to be figured out.

Since Gary Cornwell not only thinks Oswald guilty, but that those
like me who have concluded Oswald was a “mere patsy” are wrong because we have
had inadequate access to the available evidence, make questionable assumptions
and use faulty logic and/or make faulty scientific analysis, I’d like him to
evaluate the four facts, the logical reasoning and the scientific analysis that
leads me to believe that Oswald is not guilty of killing the President. I’d
like for him to point out where I am wrong, or acknowledge Oswald is really not
guilty, if these four facts and reasons are agreed on and correct.

While Cornwell, like Tunheim, probably knows a lot about Oswald,
I’m pretty sure neither of them have reviewed these four basic facts,
acknowledged by the Warren Commission, that whatever else you believe about
him, if they are true, prove Oswald didn’t kill the President.

My purpose here is to present this evidence in a public
forum and use it to convince them and anyone else who believes Oswald is guilty,
that he deserves the benefit of the doubt and a presumption of innocence that
the Constitution, as well as the evidence in the case, legally and morally grants
him.

So I publicly ask, challenge Gary Cornwell and Judge Tunheim
to consider the following facts and refute or agree 1) that Oswald should not
be considered or referred to as “guilty” and 2) there’s at least the distinct possibility
that Oswald was not the Sixth Floor Sniper.

Judge Tunheim must recognize that Oswald, not having been
convicted in a court of law, should not be considered “guilty,” as that word is
a legal term reserved for those convicted in a court of law, and Cornwell should
acknowledge, based on these four acknowledged facts, that it is possible that Oswald
wasn’t the Sixth Floor Sniper, and therefore the investigation into this
unsolved homicide should consider the probability that someone other than
Oswald killed the President.

In his book Cornwell doesn’t address the reasons that lead me
to believe that Oswald could not have been the Sixth Floor Sniper, but I would
like him and Judge Tunheim to consider them and respond.

I base my conclusion on just four facts from the evidence
and testimony provided to the Warren Commission, four facts that if true,
completely exonerate Oswald from being the Sixth Floor Sniper.

This is not to say that Oswald is innocent of everything. I
don’t know who killed President Kennedy, I don’t know who took a shot at
General Walker and I don’t know who killed Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippit,
but I do know for a fact that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t kill President Kennedy.

Not my original observation, I credit Howard Roffman, in his
book “Presumed Guilty,” of first pointing
out most of these details, though I’ve since come across some additional documents
(Truly Affidavit) and evidence that supports the contention that Oswald is not
guilty and was framed as the patsy, and I believe it can be proven to anyone interested
in reviewing these facts, that Oswald was not the Sixth Floor Sniper. [12]

Oswald did not kill President Kennedy if you believe the two
men who claim they ran into Oswald in the Second Floor lunchroom ninety seconds
after the last shot - Dallas police
officer Marrion Baker and Roy Truly, the superintendent of the Texas School
Book Depository (TSBD).

There are dissenting voices who think they are lying, and there are those who
believe the first police reports and discount the later official testimony, and
these objections are certainly worth considering. [13]

But the following analysis is based strictly on four points
of fact that have been entered into evidence in the official record as
published in the Warren Report, and it rests entirely on the credibility of
Dallas Policeman Marrion Baker and TSBD superintendent Roy Truly, and what they
said occurred in the first two minutes after the assassination.

OSWALD’S ALIBI - PHYSICALLY
NOT GUILTY

Among the Dallas
motorcycle policemen escorting the President’s motorcade through Dallas,
Marrion Baker was behind the last press car when shots rang out on DealeyPlaza. Baker had just turned the
corner onto Houston Street
when he and was startled by the gun shots, his attention drawn to the roof of
the building in front of him where a flock of pigeons took flight.

The digital clock on the Hertz car rental sign on the roof
read: 12:30.

Baker pulled out of the motorcade, parked his bike,
dismounted, and as seen in the film taken by Malcolm Couch, entered the front
door of the building he suspected shots were fired from the roof - the Texas
School Book Depository (TSBD). [14.]

At the front door Baker met Roy Truly, who identified
himself as the building superintendent. Baker said he wanted to go to the roof,
so Truly led Baker back through the first floor to the rear service elevators
that went up to the roof.

Just inside the front door there are steps that lead up to
the second floor, and a passenger elevator that went up to the fourth floor,
but Baker suspected the shots came from the roof, and that’s where he wanted to
go, and Truly knew that only the back stairs and two rear service elevators
went to the top floors and roof, so that’s where they headed.

At the back of the first floor, looking up the open elevator
shaft, Truly saw that the two service elevators were stopped together on the
fifth floor, so Baker followed Truly as they ran up the rickety wooden stairs.

During their Warren Commission testimony, commission counsel
David Belin, Commissioner Allen Dulles, Senator John Sherman Cooper and
Congressman Hale Boggs all questioned both Truly and Baker about their
lunchroom encounter with Oswald.

Mr. Dulles: “You do not think he used any of the elevators
at any time to get from the sixth to the second floor?”

Mr. Truly: “You mean after the shooting? No, sir; he just
could not, because those elevators, I saw myself, were both on the fifth floor,
they were both even. And I tried to get one of them, and then when we ran up to
the second floor - it would have been impossible for him to have come down
either one of those elevators after the assassination. He had to use the
stairway as his only way of getting down - since we did see the elevators in
those positions.”

When Roy Truly got to the top of steps on second floor, he
said he made a sharp left turn walked ten feet and started to ascend the steps
to the third floor, thinking Baker was right behind him. [15]

Truly: “I suppose I was up
two or three steps before I realized the officer wasn’t following me…I came
back to the second-floor landing. I heard some voices, or a voice, coming from
the area of the lunchroom, or the inside vestibule. I ran over and looked in
this door…I opened the door…I saw the officer almost directly in the doorway to
the lunchroom facing Lee Harvey Oswald.…He was just inside the lunchroom door,
two or three feet possibly. When I reached there, the officer had his gun
pointing at Oswald. The officer turned this way and said, ‘This man work here?’
And I said, ‘Yes.’ … Then we left Lee Harvey Oswald immediately and continued
to run up the stairways.”

THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION [16]

When Marrion Baker got to the top of steps on the Second
Floor landing he started to turn the corner a few feet behind Truly but suddenly
stopped, later testifying under oath that as he turned the corner on the second
floor, he “scanned the room” and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man
through the glass window of a door.

Marrion Baker: “As I
came out to the second floor there, Mr. Truly was ahead of me, and as I come
out I was kind of scanning, you know, the room, and I caught a glimpse of this
man walking away from this — I
happened to see him through this window in this door. I don’t know how
come I saw him, but I had a glimpse of him coming down there.” [17]

The Warren Report: “On the
second floor landing there is a small open area with a door at the east end.
This door leads into a small vestibule, and another door leads from the
vestibule into the second-floor lunchroom. The lunchroom door is usually open,
but the first door is kept shut by a closing mechanism on the door. This
vestibule door is solid except for a small glass window in the upper part of
the door. As Baker reached the second floor, he was about 20 feet from the
vestibule door. He intended to continue around to his left toward the stairway
going up butthrough the window in
the doorhe caught a fleeting glimpse of a man walking in the vestibule
toward the lunchroom.”

Attracted by the man in the door window, Baker suddenly
stopped, took out his .38 revolver from its holster and moved towards the door.

At the moment Baker caught a fleeting glimpse of a man
through the Second Floor lunchroom window, the Hertz clock on the roof read 12:31, within ninety seconds after the last
shot was fired.

THE LUNCHROOM ENCOUNTER

As Harold Weisberg concluded, “The lunchroom encounter was
Oswald's alibi; it proved that he could not have been at the sixth-floor
window during the shots.” [18]

That Oswald didn’t do it is the only conclusion that can be
reached. What exonerates Oswald is the combination of four basic facts. 1) Roy
Truly didn’t see anyone at the top of the Second Floor stairs; 2) Moments later
Marrion Baker saw someone through the lunchroom door window; 3) that person was
Lee Harvey Oswald; and the clincher 4) that door was closed when Baker saw
Oswald though the window.

Those are the basic facts of the case, as presented by the
Warren Report, facts that exonerate Oswald as the assassin.

Since the door had to be closed when Baker first saw Oswald
though the window, Oswald couldn’t have entered through that door, or Truly
would have seen him, so he didn’t come down the stairs, wasn’t on the Sixth
Floor when the shots were fired, and didn’t kill the President.

The lunchroom door had to be closed for Baker to see Oswald
through the window because science requires that if the door was open, even if
only an inch or two, physics and pure geometry dictate the 2 foot by 2 foot
square window decrease in size as the door opens and closes, which makes it
impossible for Baker, standing 20 feet away at the top of the stares, to see
anything through the window. The door had to be closed for Baker to see Oswald
through that window. [19]

Rather than recognize the significance of Baker seeing
Oswald through the lunchroom door window, the Warren Commission tried to
establish that it was at least possible for Oswald to have gone from the Sixth
Floor window to the Second Floor lunchroom within the allotted ninety seconds
it took for Truly and Baker to get there.

The Warren Commission, the Commission staff attorneys, the
FBI and the Secret Service merely ignored the problem with the closed lunchroom
door, as they also tried, as they did with the missed shot that injured James
Tague, to just ignore it. Then, like magicians, they deflected attention from
the closed door that Truly didn’t see Oswald go through, to the amount of time
it took for Baker and Truly to get to that spot. They repeatedly timed how long
it would take to go from the Sixth Floor Sniper’s window to the lunchroom, and
decided that would constitute proof that it could be done. [20]

As Roffman indicates, “One of the
crucial aspects of Baker's story” (that proves Oswald’s innocence) is his position
at the time he caught a ‘fleeting glimpse’ of a man in the vestibule (through
the door window). Baker marked this position during his testimony as having
been immediately adjacent to the stairs at the northwest corner of the building.”

Roffman: “It should be noted that
the Report never mentions Baker's position at the time he (first) saw Oswald in
the vestibule. Instead, it prints a floor plan of the second floor
and notes Baker's position ‘when he observed Oswald in lunchroom.’ This
location, as indicated in the Report, was immediately outside the vestibule
door. The reader of the Report is left with the impression that Baker saw
Oswald in the vestibule as well from this position. However, Baker testified
explicitly that he first caught a glimpse of the man in the vestibule from the
stairs and, upon running to the vestibule door, saw Oswald in the lunchroom.
The Report's failure to point out Baker's position is significant.”

The Warren Commission marked an X at a point on the map of
the Second Floor, [21] that was introduced into evidence, just outside the closed
lunchroom door where Baker -through the window - saw a man in the lunchroom walking
away from him, so Baker opened door and with gun drawn, halted the man who stopped
and turned around, as Baker ordered the man to “Come here.”

With Baker’s revolver aimed at his belly, the man slowly
walked back towards Baker and appeared perplexed, but not surprised or out of
breath.

In his testimony before the
Warren Commission, Allen Dulles and Hale Boggs recognized the significance of
this encounter, and questioned Baker about it.

Dulles: “Where was he coming
from, do you know?”

Baker: No, sir. All I seen of
him was a glimpse of him go away from me. He was walking away from me about 20
feet away from me in the lunchroom… I hollered at him at that time and said,
‘Come here.’ He turned and walked right straight back to me.”

Baker couldn’t say where the
man was coming from. He first saw the man from the top of the stairs through
the door window and couldn’t say that the man went through that door, and he wasn’t
going to.

Commissioner Boggs: “Were you
suspicious of this man?”

Baker: “No, sir; I wasn’t.”

Boggs: “When you saw him, was
he out of breath, did he appear to have been running, or what?”

Baker: “It didn’t appear that
to me. He appeared normal, you know.”

Boggs: “Was he calm and
collected?”

Baker: “Yes, sir; He never
did say a word or nothing. In fact, he didn’t change his expression one bit.”

Mr. Belin: Did he flinch in anyway when you put the gun up .
. .?
Mr. Baker: No, sir.

Sen. Cooper: He did not show any evidence of any
emotion?
Mr. Baker: No, sir.

They go “off the record” a number of times while taking the
testimony of both Baker and Truly, and you have to wonder what they are talking
about, trying to get their stories straight, but the most curious thing is, if
Baker saw Oswald as he had just entered through the door, then Truly - a few
steps ahead of Baker, should most certainly have seen Oswald going through the
door - but he didn’t see anyone.

In reenacting what the Warren Report says happened, if you
stop the action with Baker at the top of the stairs seeing Oswald through the
closed door window, and back things up - the door opens a foot, two feet,
Oswald backs out, his left hand goes on the door handle, Baker descends the
steps backwards, Truly comes back to the top of the steps, he is directly
facing Oswald walking through the door - how come Truly doesn’t see anyone?

Mr. BELIN. All right. Then what did you do?
Mr. TRULY. I went up on a run up the stairway.
Mr. BELIN. Could you again follow--from Point B, could you show which way you
went? All right.
Mr. TRULY. What is this here? (Looking at map of 2nd Floor)
Mr. BELIN. This is to show this is a stairway, and there is a stairway above
it, too. But you went up the stairs right here?
Mr. TRULY. That is right.
Mr. BELIN. Okay. And where was this officer at that time?
Mr. TRULY. This officer was right behind me and coming up the stairway.
By the time I reached the second floor, the officer was a little further behind
me than he was on the first floor, I assume - I know.
Mr. BELIN. Was he a few feet behind you then?
Mr. TRULY. He was a few feet. It is hard for me to tell. I ran right on around
to my left, started to continue on up the stairway to the third floor, and on
up.Mr. BELIN. Now when you say you ran on to your left, did you look straight
ahead to see whether there was anyone in that area, or were you intent on just
going upstairs?Mr. TRULY. If there had been anybody
in that area, I would have seen him on the outside. But I was
content--I was trying to show the officer the pathway up, where the elevators -
I mean where the stairways continued….

Rather than dwell on this important point that exonerates
Oswald, Belin picks up the action at the lunchroom door.

Mr. Belin: Did you see any expression on his face? Or
weren't you paying attention?
Mr. Truly: He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might
have been a little startled, like I might have been if someone confronted me.
But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face.

Counsel Belin: All right. How
far was the officer’s gun from Lee Harvey Oswald when he asked the question?”

Truly: …it seemed to me like
it was almost touching him.

Baker asked, “Does this man work here?” and Truly said yes, identifying
the man as an employee. Baker lowered
his gun and then Truly and Baker continued their assent up the stairs to the
roof, and Oswald proceeded to buy himself a coke.

Numerous attempts were made to time how long it took for
someone to traverse the distance from the Sixth Floor window to the lunchroom
within a minute and a half, as Oswald would have had to do if he was the
assassin. Repeated tests successfully demonstrated that the Sixth Floor Sniper
could have made it to the Second Floor lunchroom in that amount of time, but
logically, that doesn’t prove Oswald did it, it only proves that anyone could
have traversed that distance in that amount of time.

They also repeatedly timed Truly and Baker walking and
running from the front curb to the Second Floor lunchroom door, and came up
with the same one minute and thirty seconds, give or take ten seconds one way
or another. So the Second Floor lunchroom incident occurred approximately ninety
seconds after the last shot was fired.

As Michael Roffman, after a thorough analysis, concluded, “Had
Oswald been the assassin, he would have arrived in the lunchroom at
least five to eleven seconds after Baker reached the second floor,
even if Baker took the longest time obtainable for his ascent - a
minute, 30 seconds. Had Baker ascended in 70 seconds - as he easily could have
- he would have arrived at least 25 seconds before Oswald (or someone
descending from the Sixth Floor). Either case removes the possibility that
Oswald descended from the sixth floor, for….he unquestionably arrived in the
lunchroom before Baker.”

In his book (“Presumed Guilty”) Roffman writes: “The
circumstances surrounding the lunchroom encounter indicate that Oswald entered
the lunchroom not by the vestibule door from without, as he would
have had he descended from the sixth floor, but through a hallway leading
into the vestibule. The outer vestibule door is closed automatically by a
closing mechanism on the door When Truly arrived on the second floor, he did
not see Oswald entering the vestibule. For the Commission's case to be
valid, Oswald must have entered the vestibule through the first door before
Truly arrived. Baker reached the second floor immediately after Truly and
caught a fleeting glimpse of Oswald in the vestibule through a small window in
the outer door. Although Baker said the vestibule door "might have
been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time," it is dubious that
he could have distinguished whether the door was fully or ‘almost’ closed.”

In fact, the door had to be
completely closed for Baker to see anything through the door window.

Roffman: “Baker's and Truly's observations are not at all
consistent with Oswald's having entered the vestibule through the first door.
Had Oswald done this, he could have been inside the lunchroom well before the
automatic mechanism closed the vestibule door. Truly's testimony that he saw
no one entering the vestibule indicates either that Oswald was already in the
vestibule at this time or was approaching it from another source. However,
had Oswald already entered the vestibule when Truly arrived on the second
floor, it is doubtful that he would have remained there long enough for Baker
to see him seconds later. Likewise, the fact that neither man saw the
mechanically closed door in motion is cogent evidence that Oswald did not enter
the vestibule through that door.”

It was only for that one fleeting moment - as Baker reached
the top of the stairs and began to turn to the left and make his scan of the
room when he was attracted by the moving blur in the window - the sideways
profile of Oswald’s head as he passed behind that window from right to
left.

“Had Oswald descended from the sixth floor,” writes Roffman,
“his path through the vestibule into the lunchroom would have been confined to
the north wall of the vestibule. Yet the line of sight from Baker's position at
the steps does not include any area near the north wall. From the steps, Baker
could have seen only one area in the vestibule - the southeast portion. The
only way Oswald could have been in this area on his way to the lunchroom is if
he entered the vestibule through the southernmost door, as the previously
cited testimony indicates he did. Oswald could not have entered the
vestibule in this manner had he just descended from the sixth floor. The only
way he could have gotten to the southern door is from the first floor up
through either a large office space or an adjacent corridor. As the Report
concedes, Oswald told police he had eaten his lunch on the first floor and gone
up to the second to purchase a coke when he encountered an officer…”

The significance of Baker’s view of Oswald through the window
of the closed lunchroom door became apparent to the Secret Service during the
course of their reconstruction of the assassination, as they stopped their
reenactment right there at the lunchroom door. [22]

It also came to the attention of Warren Commission
investigators who realized that if Baker did indeed see Oswald through the window
of the lunchroom door, then he wasn’t the assassin. Proof the Warren Commission
recognized this exculpatory evidence is based on the fact they actually
recalled Truly to testify a second time, just to put it on the record.

When the Warren Commission attorneys realized the
significance of these facts, they recalled Roy Truly a second time, after he
had already testified extensively, just to ask him one question, the clincher.
At an office in the Post Office Annex just across DealeyPlaza from the TSBD, they placed
Truly under oath and created a legal affidavit in order to answer one peculiar
question: did the door to the second floor lunchroom have an automatic closing
device?

And the answer is yes, it does.

The following affidavit was executed by Roy Sansom Truly on August 3, 1964.

PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION
ON THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

AFFIDAVIT

STATE OF TEXAS,County of Dallas,
ss:

I, Roy Sansom Truly, being duly sworn say:
1. I am the Superintendent of the Texas School Book Depository Building Dallas,
Texas.
2. The door opening on the vestibule of the lunchroom on the second floor of
the TexasSchoolBookDepositoryBuilding
is usually shut because of a closing mechanism on the door.

Signed this 3d day of August 1964, at Dallas Tex.
(S) Roy Sansom Truly,
ROY SANSOM TRULY [23]

Now those Warren Commission lawyers could have easily walked
across Dealey Plaza and in a matter of minutes learned that basic truth
themselves, but they recalled Truly to put the question and answer on the
record – did the 2nd Floor lunchroom door have an automatic closing device? It
is a simple fact that exonerates Oswald from being Kennedy’s killer because, as
the affidavit says, the door is usually closed shut because of that mechanism,
and in fact, basic physics dictate that the door had to have been closed when
Baker saw Oswald through the window of the door.

Of course the Warren Commission lawyers did not explain the
ramifications of these facts, they simply dismissed Truly from answering any
further questions, and the Secret Service, just stopped their reconstruction of
the assassination right there at that door, without bothering to continue to
follow Oswald, who was not the assassin.

But they never bothered to explain what it meant, the true
significance or the resulting and inescapable conclusions that stem from the
fact that since the door was closed, -Oswald didn’t enter the lunchroom through
that door when Baker saw him, didn’t descend the stairs, wasn’t on the Sixth
Floor when the shots were fired and didn’t kill the President.

In addition, there is other evidence that supports the fact
that Oswald didn’t go through that door or come down the steps, and reaffirms
his alibi including 1) Truly didn’t see Oswald as he would have if Oswald had
gone through the door; 2) Jack Dougherty, a worker on the Fifth Floor landing,
who took one of the elevators down, didn’t see anyone run past him, as he
should have if the Sixth Floor Sniper had immediately ran down the steps; [24] 3)
two secretaries from the Fourth Floor offices didn’t see anyone on the stairs
as they descended to the first floor immediately after the assassination, and
[25] 4) the three black guys, who witnessed the assassination from the Fifth
Floor corner window directly beneath the Sixth Floor Sniper, didn’t see anyone
run past them when they were near the steps, where they were when Baker and
Truly arrived and took the other elevator to the Seventh Floor and inspected the
roof; [26] 5) minutes after the last
shot a court clerk from across the street saw a man in the Sniper’s Window,
ostensibly moving boxes around, when Oswald was on the second floor. [27]

Under interrogation Oswald said that at the time of the
assassination he was on the first floor in the Domino Room eating lunch, when
two of the black guys he worked with walked through. Although they claimed not
to have noticed Oswald, the two men acknowledged that before going up to the
Fifth Floor they did walk through the Domino Room, so how did Oswald know they
were there if he didn’t see him? Further corroboration that Oswald was in the
Domino Room came a few weeks after the assassination when his jacket was
discovered in the window sill, right where he said he ate lunch. [28]

Oswald said that when he left the Domino Room he went up the front steps to the
Second Floor Lunchroom to get a coke, when he was confronted by the policeman
and Roy Truly. After buying the coke in the lunchroom, Oswald walked out the
door he entered, not the one Baker saw him through, but the one that went into
the outer office where he encountered a secretary, who wasn’t there when he had
walked through a few moments earlier. She said Oswald walked past her desk with
a coke in his hand, and when she said something about the President being shot,
she didn’t hear what he mumbled in response. [29]

Oswald ostensibly went down the front steps to the first floor, calmly directed
a reporter to a pay phone, heard Bill Shelly say that there wouldn’t be any
more work that day, then walked out the front door and onto the streets of
Dallas. [30]

At the same time, Roy Truly and Marrion Baker arrived on the
roof of the TSBD and found no one there except pigeons.

1. Polls have
consistently shown 80% of the people don’t believe the Warren Report conclusion
that Oswald alone killed the President and only 20% agree with it. The Pew poll
on American public confidence in the government reached a peak in 1963 and has
been decreasing steadily since 1964, when the Warren Report was issued.

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE PRINCETON, NJ - Americans are skeptical
of the official conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he
assassinated President John F. Kennedy 40 years ago, but there is no consensus
about which conspiracy theory to believe. Three-quarters of Americans recently
told Gallup that they think more
than one man was involved in Kennedy's assassination. Only 19% of Americans
think it was the work of one individual…

2. Innocent until
proven guilty. See: The Constitution of the United
States.

4. Both of those
men on the street who saw the man with the rife in the Sixth Floor window -
Brennan and Eunis said they could identify the gunman if they saw him again,
but while they were standing in front of the TSBD with Secret Service SAIC
Forrest Sorrells, Oswald ostensibly walked out the front door and neither
recognized Oswald as the gunman.

5. Amos Eunis -
Mr. EUINS. “I seen a bald spot on this man's head, trying to look out the
window. He had a bald spot on his head. I was looking at the bald spot. I
could see his hand, you know the rifle laying across in his hand. And I could
see his hand sticking out on the trigger part. And after he got through, he just
pulled it back in the window.”

6. FBI Report on
Mrs. R. E. Arnold. Howard Roffman notes: “The Warren Commission stated in its
Report that it knew of no Book Depository employee who claimed to have seen
Oswald between 11:55 and 12:30 on the day of the assassination. This
was false, as this FBI report from the Commission's files reveals. The Warren
Report never mentions Mrs. Arnold and this FBI document was omitted from the
Commission's published evidence.” FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Date 11/26/63
Mrs. R. E. ARNOLD, Secretary, Texas School Book Depository, advised she
was in her office on the second floor of the building on November 22, 1963, and
left that office between 12:00 and 12:15 PM, to go downstairs and stand in front
of the building to view the Presidential Motorcade. As she was standing in
front of the building, she stated she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of LEE
HARVEY OSWALD standing in the hallway between the front door and the double
doors leading to the warehouse, located on the first floor. She could not be
sure that this was OSWALD, but said she felt it was and believed the time to be
a few minutes before 12:15 PM.
She stated thereafter she viewed the Presidential
Motorcade and heard the shots that were fired at the President; however, she
could furnish no information of value as to the individual firing the shots or
any other information concerning OSWALD, whom she stated she did not know and
had merely seen him working in the building.

7. At 12:15 p.m Arnold Rowland while standing with
his wife diagonally across the street from the TSBD, and timed to the chatter
of a police radio that announced the motorcade was “at Cedar
Springs Road off Turtle Creek,” saw a man on Sixth
floor windows standing at “Port Arms” with a rifle. Rowland pointed him out to
his wife, but not to the policeman standing a few feet away.

8. Court Clerk
12:34. This witness said that after viewing the motorcade from one floor in the
court house, she went to another floor and looked out the window to see the
pant legs of a man in the Sixth Floor window, apparently moving boxes around
the Sniper’s Nest four to five minutes after the assassination. (Will post link
to affidavit ASAP)

10. JFK Act 1992,
www.nara.gov . The Final Report notes that
the ARRB was not to investigate the assassination once again, but to identify
and release government records to the public so citizens could make up their
own minds. 102nd Cong. Sponsored by Rep. Louis Stokes (Oh. 21), became Public
Law No:102-526 on October 26, 1992

BEFORE ME, Mary Rattan, a Notary Public in and for said
County, State of Texas, on this
day personally appeared M. L. Baker, Patrolman Dallas Police Department who,
after being by me duly sworn, on oath deposes and says: Friday November 22, 1963 I was riding motorcycle
escort for the President of the United States.
At approximately 12:30 pm I was on Houston
Street and the President's car had made a left
turn from Houston onto Elm
Street. Just as I approached Elm
Street and Houston I heard three shots. I realized
those shots were rifle shots and I began to try to figure out where they came
from. I decided the shots had come from the building on the northwest corner of
Elm and Houston. This building is
used by the Board of Education for book storage. I jumped off my motor and ran
inside the building. As I entered the door I saw several people standing
around. I asked these people where the stairs were. A man stepped forward and
stated he was the building manager and that he would show me where the stairs
were. I followed the man to the rear of the building and he said, "Let's
take the elevator." The elevator was hung several floors up so we used the
stairs instead. As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking
away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back
toward me. The manager said, "I know that man, he works here." I then
turned the man loose and went up to the top floor. The man I saw was a white man
approximately 30 years old, 5'9", 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a
light brown jacket.

14. Baker enters
TSBD. Gary Mack, using the Malcom Couch [Couch Film: http://www.youbute.com/watch?v=bIdb0352160]
and Zapruder films as a guide, estimates that Baker didn’t enter the TSBD until
45 seconds after the last shot. For more on Mack’s analysis see note 31) Response.

PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY AFFIDAVIT STATE OF TEXAS, County
of Dallas, ss:

I, Marrion L Baker, being duly sworn say:
1. I am an officer in the Dallas Police Department.
2. On November 22, 1963,
upon hearing shots I rode my motorcycle 180 to 200 feet, parked the motorcycle,
and ran 45 feet to the TexasSchoolBookDepositoryBuilding.
3. On March 20, 1964,
counsel from the President's Commission on the Assassination of President
Kennedy timed a re-enactment of my actions after hearing the shots on November 22, 1963. During this re-enactment, I reached the
recessed door of the TexasSchoolBookDepositoryBuilding fifteen seconds after the time of the simulated shot.Signed
this 11th day of August 1964, at Dallas, Tex.

19. Door closed. Science,
physics and geometry dictate that the door had to be closed for Baker to see
anything through the window. Truly’s affidavit also proves that the door “is
usually closed,” because of an automatic mechanism.

The following affidavit was executed by Roy Sansom Truly on August 3, 1964.

PRESIDENT'S COMMISSIONON THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN
F. KENNEDY AFFIDAVIT STATE OF TEXAS, County
of Dallas, ss:

I, Roy Sansom Truly, being duly sworn say:
1. I am the Superintendent of the Texas School Book Depository Building Dallas,
Texas.
2. The door opening on the vestibule of the lunchroom on the second floor of
the TexasSchoolBookDepositoryBuilding is usually
shut because of a closing mechanism on the door. Signed this 3d day of
August 1964, at DallasTex.

(S) Roy Sansom Truly, ROY SANSOM TRULY.

24. Jack
Doughterty said he was on the fifth floor landing when heard a shot, and then
descended to the first floor in one of the elevators. The other was used by
Truly and Baker to go to the seventh floor and roof. (Will post Dougherty
testimony link ASAP)

25. Victoria
“Vicki” Elizabeth Adams and Sandra Styles, left their fourth floor office
within a minute of the last shot and descended the back steps without seeing
anyone until they arrived on the first floor where they encountered William
Shelley and Billy Lovelady. See book: “The
Girl on the Stairs” by Barrny Ernest.

26. The Fifth
Floor Witnesses. The three black guys who were in the window below and adjacent
to the Sixth Floor assassin, saw and heard Truly and Baker take the elevator
but remained hidden behind a book bin so Truly and Baker didn’t see them.

27. The Sixth
Floor Sniper’s Nest was constructed by the floor laying crew, and the boxes on
the window were re-arranged after the last shot by either the Sixth Floor
Sniper or his spotter, as can be seen in the photos of the window taken from
the street moments apart by Dillard and Powell. A court clerk from across the
street saw a man in the Sniper’s Window four to five minutes after the last
shot, apparently re-arranging boxes.

28. Oswald in
Domino Room. Oswald was seen reading a newspaper in the first floor Domino
Room, and was elsewhere on the first floor at 11:55, noon and 12:15.

29. Mrs. Robert Reid, Warren Commission testimony of 3H 278—279) http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/04/0496-001.gif Mrs. Robert Reid TSBD secretary - met Oswald on 2nd floor w/
Coke. November 22, 1963—12:32
p.m., CST—time approximated from context. TexasSchool Book Depository, Dallas,
Texas. Mrs. Robert Reid, Clerical Supervisor
at the Book Depository commented to her employers that she believed the shots
came from “our building.”

Mrs. Reid: “The thought that
went through my mind, my goodness I

must get out of this line of
shots, they may fire more. I ran into the building.

I do not recall seeing anyone
in the lobby. I ran up to our office…up the

stairs…the front stairs…I
went into the office. I kept walking and I looked

up and Oswald was coming in
the back door of the office. I met him by the

time I passed my desk several
feet… I had no thoughts of anything of him

having any connection with it
at all because he was very calm. He had

gotten a coke and was holding
it in his hands and I guess the reason it

impressed me seeing him in
there I thought it was a little strange that one of

the warehouse boys would be
up in the office at that time, not that he had

done anything wrong.”

Counsel Belin: “Was there
anything else you noticed about him?

Anything about the expression
on his face?”

Reid: “No; just calm.”

Commissioner Dulles: “Was he
moving fast?”

Reid: “No; because he was
moving at a very slow pace. I never did

see him moving fast at any
time.”

30. Front Door.

31. Timing is
everything. Responses to the first posting of this article included the
following from Gary Mack.

GM: “Let's dispense with Roffman's Baker-Oswald theory right
away. The Mal Couch/WFAA film begins AFTER his car came to a stop in the
intersection and it shows Charles Hester rising from the grass on the north
side of Elm. That action can be matched with other films, including
Zapruder, to yield a highly accurate time line. The result? Baker,
who can be seen at the same moment in the Couch film running across
the Elm Street extension, didn't reach the front door until 40-45 seconds after
the last shot. And that data means even more time elapsed than previously
thought, thus allowing Oswald extra seconds to reach the lunchroom ahead of
Baker. And that also means the two women employees went down the stairs
AHEAD of Oswald and thus could not, and should not, have seen him.”

- Gary Mack

Gary Mack Wrote:

Let me add some more information:

Once Jack White and I looked at a frame blowup from a very
clear print of the Wiegman (note spelling) film, we saws the limo still on Elm;
from there it was easy to locate the car on the street and, therefore, connect
it to the Z film at about frame 450, or 7.5 seconds after the head shot.

From a video tape of the original Wiegman film as broadcast
on NBC that day, the timing was relatively easy and it showed that Dave Wiegman
started filming from near the Elm/Houston intersection two to three seconds
before the head shot. Unlike the Wiegman film in Groden’s videos – which
is slightly edited – the uncut original film and an intact first generation
print at the Dallas NBC affiliate (where I worked in the 80s and 90s) provide
an extension of the Zapruder clock. The Wiegman film shows when Charles
Hester stood up, left his wife on the ground, and ran into the pergola.

The Malcom (that’s how he spelled it) Couch film shows
Hester in the pergola as his wife stands up on the grass, thus tacking on
another extension to the clock. Her movements happened a couple seconds
after Baker crossed the Elm extension headed to the TSBD doorway.

I don’t have the exact numbers memorized, but the 40-45
second time frame I wrote earlier is quite accurate. What we don’t know
is how much time Baker spent in the lobby looking around wondering what to do
until Truly found him, nor do we know what other minor delays they may have
encountered yet never mentioned on the way to the stairwell.

So what does all this mean? As folks may know, the
TSBD stairwell was removed in the late 70s when DallasCounty rehabbed the building for
office space. They left the sixth and seventh floors alone, however, and
the stairwell is still there leading both halfway down and up from the sixth
floor.

I can only speculate, but the timing tells me the two women
were far ahead of Oswald and of no further significance. But I can see
how Oswald, going down the stairs to the front door, heard two men coming up so
he quickly darted into the lunchroom to establish an alibi.

Truly didn’t see him or the swinging door because he was
watching the floor with his eyes focused to the left to make the turn out of
the stairwell, across the landing, and up the next stairwell. Baker,
following close behind, was specifically looking for someone or something out
of the ordinary and happened to spot the back of Oswald’s head in the vestibule
and, for reasons known only to Baker, decided to question the guy.

It could also be that Oswald, hearing people approaching,
may have entered the vestibule and ducked down out of sight, then stood up and
entered the lunchroom door – thus revealing his presence to Baker.

It’s especially interesting that Howard Roffman, back in the
mid-70s working on Presumed Guilty but without having access to the
rest of the footage, figured out the Couch film could answer much of the timing
question. It does.

[BK: In this
Helmer Reenberg prosecution, a photo of the front stairs is shown as the stairs
Truly and Baker ascended to the second floor, when in fact they went up the
much smaller rear stairs next to the duel service elevators. The broad steps in
the photo only go one floor – to the second and the adjacent passenger elevator
only went to the fourth floor.]

Bill, visuals analysts around the globe are now noticing what appears to be darkening of the TSBD front doorway in the spectator home movies that captured that area. If proven, it's a good indication LHO was indeed 'out front with Shelley' as he reportedly told Fritz. It also indicates he followed on the heels of Baker & Truly for some reasons, perhaps to witness or block an arrest?

Not all owners of the spectator films will authorize Internet usage. If you (or friends) have time to do this self-analysis yourself, obtain the best quality, clearest images available (I recommend those programs broadcast by the Discovery channel this past decade). Making screen grabs of each frame is helpful when clicking your mouse back & forth rapidly. Quite often what the difference between successive frames becomes obvious to the eyes after performing this simple visual research technique.Making your own screen grabs insures you have all the frames; some website have incomplete frame inventories posted online. You want them all.

Bill, visuals analysts around the globe are now noticing what appears to be darkening of the TSBD front doorway in the spectator home movies that captured that area. If proven, it's a good indication LHO was indeed 'out front with Shelley' as he reportedly told Fritz. It also indicates he followed on the heels of Baker & Truly for some reasons, perhaps to witness or block an arrest?

Not all owners of the spectator films will authorize Internet usage. If you (or friends) have time to do this self-analysis yourself, obtain the best quality, clearest images available (I recommend those programs broadcast by the Discovery channel this past decade). Making screen grabs of each frame is helpful when clicking your mouse back & forth rapidly. Quite often what the difference between successive frames becomes obvious to the eyes after performing this simple visual research technique.Making your own screen grabs insures you have all the frames; some website have incomplete frame inventories posted online. You want them all.

Great article Bill. Is there going to be any rebuttal to Gary Mack's assertions? I am working on a 5 year assassination timeline if you would care to critique it. It is a work in progress and still a long ways from being complete:http://www.historysmysteries.org/jfk-assassination.php